Great places to stay in Georgetown, Penang

Our pick of the best

What we say:

Georgetown, Penang, offers a great array of places to stay, from cheap backpacker haunts through to charming heritage hotels. Here are a few guesthouses and hotels in Georgetown that struck us as outstanding value for money.

Don’t let the choice of hotels in Georgetown put you in a spin.

Under 50 ringgit
If you’re visiting Georgetown on a budget, dorms are the way to go. Most of the cheaper guesthouses offer them, generally priced around the 25-30 ringgit mark. We thought Old Penang Guesthouse had the best dorms overall, with solid and well kept wood-framed bunks and the hostel has a good social vibe to it. Guest Inn Muntri is another good option. If you’d prefer your own room, Oriental Guesthouse has good-sized double rooms with share bathroom starting at 35 ringgit — the bathrooms are not the best, but they make up for it with very friendly staff. If Oriental is too grungy for you, try Star Lodge up the road — it has the same friendly owners and is sparkly clean throughout.

At the Oriental — better rooms lie upstairs.

50-100 ringgit
Most of the backpacker options have double rooms with private or shared bathrooms priced in the flashpacker budget, but none of them struck us as terrific value — this is a market that isn’t very well-served in Georgetown. We stayed at Red Inn Heritage for a night and while it had a good social vibe with a large common area and good staff, the room was very noisy and the advertised WiFi was very unreliable. Overall we’d recommended spending an extra 20-30 ringgit and head up a price-bracket.

The ground-floor common area at Red Inn Heritage.

100-200 ringgit
Easily the best mid-priced option in Georgetown is Cintra Heritage House — especially if their opening prices stay so reasonable. Consider it an “entry level” heritage house; it’s a charming and affordable way to experience this style of accommodation in Penang without paying the earth. Rooms do catch some noise — from either the street or the mosque — we’d go with the street noise. This is a good option for those needing a bit of extra space for kids in the room. Especially friendly staff round out a solid deal.

Affordable heritage at Cintra.

200-300 ringgit
The Nordin Mews is, quite simply, astounding value for money. The rooms are decorated in a Chinese retro-style inspired by 1950s Asian cinema and fashion, and we found them to be utterly charming. There is a swimming pool on site (a rarity in Georgetown) along with a small cafe. The location is a shortish 15-minute walk from the heart of the heritage area, but it’s an interesting walk with plenty of snack-stops along the way. If this fits your budget, look no further. Check Agoda for a discounted rate.

Our room at Noordin Mews. Yes they are our grotty flip flops. [Ed: Actually, they are mine. You borrowed them?!]

Over 300 ringgit
Georgetown is famous for its heritage houses and there are plenty of one- and two-room options scattered across town, but none (in our humble opinion) come close to the lovingly restored 23 Love Lane. The Oasis Guesthouse in a previous life, we took advantage of a special deal on Agodato snap up a very splurge-like single-night stay and it was worth every penny. Rooms are in both the main house and a couple of annexes and they are uniformly lovely. Really. If you’re looking for a romantic hideaway, you’ll be very, very satisfied here. The only downside is you’ll miss the rest of Georgetown as you’ll never want to leave your room.

Last reviewed by: Stuart McDonald
Stuart McDonald co-founded Travelfish.org with Samantha Brown in 2004. He has lived in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia, where he worked as an under-paid, under-skilled language teacher, an embassy staffer, a newspaper web-site developer and various other stuff. His favourite read is The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton and he spends most of his time in Bali, Indonesia.